


Dark Mirror

by grecianviolet



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drama, F/M, USS Archangel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 50
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grecianviolet/pseuds/grecianviolet
Summary: When Gabriel Lorca is thrown from his own dimension, his only thought is how to return home. Then he discovers the Federation's Michael Burnham, and his focus shifts. A study of the interplay between Lorca and Burnham, told 100 words at a time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I'm new to writing for Star Trek, but certainly not new to the fandom. You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter at nofearofwaves, and on Fanfiction.net as Ione.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this collection of drabbles, which I intend to update daily. Please leave a note letting me know what you think!

**Crossover**

The ion storm scatters his atoms to the universe's farthest quadrants. His will draws them back together. In pieces he materializes, collapsing to the transporter pad of the  _Buran_. Blinded and dizzy, he readies himself for the knife.

But the crewman at his side isn't holding one.

"Are you all right, sir?"

It's a soft voice, solicitous. More sickening than that, it's  _sincere._ A voice without knowledge of what it means to beg a favor.

Lorca shoves aside the man's hand and staggers upright, reeling as his memories finally arrive from the void of space.

"What happened?"


	2. Phoenix

**Phoenix**

A crew knows her captain. A crew vibrates to the exact frequency of her captain's thoughts. Anticipates his moods. Accommodates his needs.

Which is why Lorca knows this crew will discover his truth.

Suspicion builds by inches. A new broken bone found by a medical scan. An order given too quick or too slow. Bloodthirstiness they cannot understand.

He feels no remorse when he kills the  _Buran_. Its crew is not his. And they die in a crimson fireball, a glorious pyre greater than they deserve.

He rises from the flames. He begins to suspect he will always rise.


	3. Her

**Her**

This Federation is a weak, flaccid thing. Its officers are naked in their soft uniforms. Its ships are under-powered, always on the defensive. It's a patchwork thing, cobbled together from aliens and alien technology. Like all patchwork things, it's vulnerable at the seams,

Lorca loathes it. Had he his battle fleet, he would have torn through it like a sword through silk.

Worst about this Federation is that it contains faces he once knew. He says _faces_ , because their fierce hearts and souls are absent, tepid, watered-down.

He knows she is here. He won't seek her out.

 


	4. Gravity

**Gravity**

He doesn't seek her out; she finds him nonetheless. She drifts to him on tidings of war, and it's so appropriate it pains him like a snapped rib.

Michael Burnham, mutineer. Who betrayed her captain, thrusting her complacent Federation into a preemptive conflict with the Klingons. If her court-martial testimony is true, she intended to  _avoid_  a war. Lorca wants to believe she's lying; he knows she isn't.

She is not _his_ Michael. His Michael reveled in violence and death; she died glutted on both.

Michael Burnham, here,  _alive_. The possibility of her becomes an inescapable orbit.


	5. Fascination

**Fascination**

Once he decides to bring her to him, mechanics of the problem drive all other concerns aside. He spends hours in his ready room, weaving complicated schemes. As persona non grata in the Federation—a title that swells his respect for her—she is monitored at all times.

She wears her hair differently; the set of her chin is identical.

They consider her responsible for each name on the casualty lists. As if she'd taken a blade to their throats, a phaser to their skulls.

If they only knew that a Michael Burnham like that had lived, once. Elsewhere.


	6. First Contact

**First Contact**

Lorca must play at being chatty. It will give him space to observe her, put some distance between them. So he  _shares_. Folksy little tidbits of his life, his philosophies.

Bullshit.

She's disappointingly simple. Just another flimsy product of her Federation. Unguarded, vulnerable. Confusion shows too easily between her brows, on her soft, frowning lips. His Michael had known better. Confusion made her furious; she lashed out with both fists to drive it away.

He thinks this is a failed experiment. He thinks he'll throw her back.

Then:

"Captain,  _what_  am I doing on this ship?"


	7. Hook

**Hook**

"I received no warning that I'd be transferred, which is customary. Then my shuttle changed course halfway through the journey."

There's a smile behind her eyes, a weary, rueful thing. It's unspeakably odd, seeing such an alien expression on such a familiar face. Every word she speaks is dipped in regret, a longing after things she knows she can no longer have.

He doesn't know this woman. He would very much like to.

"Maybe the universe hates waste." It does. He's living proof.

"Sir?"

"The question is: what am I gonna do with you?"


	8. Gauntlet

**Gauntlet**

She's brilliant. Her work is flawless as dilithium crystal and just as valuable. More impressive, she steals her roommate's saliva, duplicating her breath print with a hypospray. So she's creative, curious, willing to break rules.

Good. Very good.

Still Lorca worries. Worries they've crushed her nerve, stolen her fight. For a woman who threw her people into a war, she's tame. Eager to please.

The wrecked  _Glen_  is an opportunity. It's painful having her near; when he sends her into danger, it's with half a hope she won't return.

She does.


	9. Leverage

**Leverage**

For months, Lorca has been cautious, tipping his hand only to those he either trusts or owns.

He trusts Landry. She is his partner in extreme tactics, eager to learn everything he has to teach her of the weapons of war. She tells him  _anything, any time_ , and it's her credo.

He owns Michael. It's somehow better.

He orders her to weaponize the tardigrade. Raised by Vulcans, believer in the Federation, his methods repulse her. Refusals dance on the tip of her tongue.

But they never come. It thrills Lorca to watch her accept her fate and voluntarily come to heel.


	10. Inevitable

**Inevitable**

Lorca is no fool. She is a distraction—a pleasant one, but a distraction. He intends to keep her at arm's length.

But she refuses to stay in Engineering. Over and again, she has the loudest voice, the best ideas. It's foolish to have her anywhere but by his side. If whispers skitter through the crew when she's assigned a bridge post, he ignores them.

Her files suggest that Michael bonds strongly with her captains, estimating  _her_ value by the value invested in her. Pathetic, perhaps, but he takes pity.

How can he deny her what she craves?


	11. Contrast

**Contrast**

The first time the dream comes, he jolts awake, shame and sweat sticky on his skin. For the first time, he dreamed of _her_ , not Michael. Not his Michael. He knows this because they're too different to be confused any longer.

His Michael had been greedy, demanding, violent in her lust. Lorca appreciates that; he _taught_ her that

Yet this...

It is only a dream. Her wide eyes, her coy lips, her gentle whispers, are all phantoms of his imagination. So too the way she draws him close, holds him to her burnt, bloody heart.

He can't forget it.

 

 


	12. Victory

**Victory**

Months pass. _Discovery_ wins battles, appearing like magic and disappearing just as quickly. Lorca sinks his teeth into the war, pushing the crew harder and farther than ever before. His scientists begin to harden into warriors. More than once, his tactical officer urges him to pursue a wounded ship. Often, cheers ring out when Klingons vaporize under their phasers.

Of course the Federation—timid, anxious—wants to stop him. Dial back. Be cautious. Wait for the fleet to catch up.

Their threats hang in the air. Refuse direct orders, and they'll take his ship from him.

They'll take Michael from him.

 

 


	13. Caught

**Caught**

They catch him.  _Him._

Lorca has never feared Klingons. Vicious, animalistic scavengers, they scuttle on the edges of his Empire, fighting for scraps. They're nothing to him but annoyances.

Of course, this is only because he's never been at their tender mercies before.

Goddamn, but they pack a punch.

Brute strength he can face. Pain means nothing to a man trained in an agonizer.

What's harder to withstand is that gleam of wicked intelligence, the one that forces his eyes open and bathes them in endless light.

It's such clever torture it might be Terran.


	14. Convert

**Convert**

Through agony, Lorca never despairs, for the universe has not abandoned him. The perfect tool for his escape is ready at hand. Ash Tyler, forged in pain, isolation, and shame, only awaits a leader to wield him. Lorca knows how to wield the friendless and desperate.

He's gathering a collection of them, it seems.

With Tyler at his side, they cut down all who would dare oppose them. In return, they cut down Tyler.

Lorca should leave him. But he likes Tyler's fury, his bloody hands breaking against his tormentor's face.

They return to  _Discovery_  together.


	15. Weakness

**Weakness**

She's a weakness. She's dangerous.

He shouldn't be standing there, at her bedside, suppressing the urge to touch her, feel her thready pulse, assure himself she's still alive.

He shouldn't be willing to put _Discovery_ at risk—of destruction or seizure—for her.

But for the first time, he's seen her eyes wet with tears. For the first time, she's begged him, pleaded with him, voice fragile and sweet.

He shouldn't put _her_ at risk.

But he does.

Because she's asked him to.

“Bring her back in one piece,” he warns Tyler, smiling, “Or don't bother coming back at all.”

 


	16. Jealousy

**Jealousy**

Making Tyler responsible for Michael has pushed them together. It was inevitable. He should have foreseen it.

Knowing this doesn't mean he enjoys watching them draw together. Their shared looks on the bridge. Their conversations in the mess. Her shy smiles, showered liberally on him. Two young, damaged souls, searching to fit their broken edges together. They are beautiful.

She is welcome to play. His Michael would have eaten a boy like Tyler raw and picked her teeth afterwards. Let this Michael test her power with him.

It won't harm her.

And he'll enjoy the show.


	17. Machinations

**Machinations**

He's slept with many people for personal gain. It's a specialty of his, a skill honed over decades.

The glass of whiskey. The lingering gazes. The shy, grasping hands. He can't claim credit for seducing Katrina Cornwell. His alter-ego did it first. In a past he's read about in Federation Lorca's youthful logs.

He'd loved her fiercely, before their paths diverged.

Lorca almost pities himself. He never lived to meet Michael.

Yes, he sleeps with Cornwell. It's the only thing to do; it's been awhile, besides. He enjoys it in a base, visceral way.

The guilt afterwards is new.

 


	18. Consequences

**Consequences**

It’s his first great misstep.

He can fake Lorca when he’s awake. Smile with a soft mouth, drawl platitudes. When he’s asleep, though…truth bleeds through.

“You tell me you’re fine,” she hisses, coiled like a cat, “and you sleep with a _phaser_ in your bed?”

He can salvage this. “I was wrong, I lied, but I can get better!”

“I knew things were different,” she talks past him, “but this is bigger than us.”

“Please, Kat,” his panic isn’t feigned, “don’t take my ship from me!”

He’s lost the universe’s favor. It will ruin him.

He knows why.


	19. Redeemed

**Redeemed**

Every second he delays is one second closer to catastrophe. His mind races with options.

But Michael has returned, Ambassador Sarek in tow.

"He'll live," Michael says, even tone proof of how relieved she is, "but he can't meet the Klingons in this condition. The window for the talks closes in a few hours."

"Admiral Cornwell could," oh yes, she could, "She'd do anything to keep the chance of peace alive."

Michael looks up at him, brown eyes smiling. As though he's passed her test.

Yes. The Klingons will have Cornwell.

He'll have  _Discovery_.


	20. Transplant

**Transplant**

Cornwell is taken in the Klingon double-cross. All is right again. Well, almost all. He follows his Federation orders like a good lackey. Takes fewer risks. It's a safe existence, as safe as war can be, but it's dull, without challenge.

He craves a challenge. Without, he has too much time for consideration.

He considers Michael. It's always her; it must be. She's the center of both his worlds.

With every jump,  _Discovery_ inches closer to taking him home. Taking  _her_  home.

Is she ready?

Will she grow to surpass her old self?

 _Can_  she?


	21. Revenant

**Revenant**

Harry Mudd walks onto his ship and shoots Michael.

She lies there, eyes clouded, and he remembers—suddenly, horribly—how he left her.

It was an argument. They argued constantly, towards the end. Anything could set her off. He doesn't even remember what did.

She was going to leave him, she spat. Return to her mother. And in one, hot, whiteout moment of blinding rage, it was done.

Now here she is. Dead in both universes, gone everywhere.

But so is he.

The timeline resets, but Lorca doesn't know it.

She dies again and so does he.


	22. Deadline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading, please review!

**Deadline**

No one dies the last time Mudd rampages through  _Discovery._  Yet it turns Lorca's stomach to be responsible for so much failure. Tilly, Tyler, Detmer, Owosekun, Saru...Burnham. All had suffered pain, fear, and death.

For  _Discovery_. For him.

He's made them warriors. Death is their birthright, their honor to give and receive. He has done this to them. It was for the best.

This Federation. This conglomeration of fools; he's shaped them in his image. But now he feels for them, and he resents it.

He  _must_  return soon.


	23. Endgame

**Endgame**

At Paavo, his chance arrives. So far he's been accumulating data jump by jump, piecing it together point by point, like beads on a string. He anticipates months before  _Discovery_ is capable of crossing over.

Then they crack the problem of the Klingon cloak. A boarding party to place sensors on the enemy's bridge, an algorithm to calculate imperfections revealed every time the ship disappears. It's a careful plan, carefully considered.

"It will take time," Burnham concludes, swallowing, "Days."

He won't be timid, this close to the end.

"We don't have days. But we do have a spore drive."


	24. Exposure

**Exposure**

When Michael demands— _demands—_ to go on the mission, Lorca refuses without a second thought.

She objects. Naturally.

"You brought me on this ship for a reason—"

Her cool, masochistic logic infuriates him. How dare she make him quail, flay him open like this, treating her death like an equation?

"And now I'm ordering you to stay!"

It's clear she thinks worry about his crew is clouding his judgment. How disgusted she'd be, bright Federation idealist, to learn that it's only  _her._  That he'd slaughter the crew entire before losing her.

He lets her go.


	25. Precipice

**Precipice**

When the  _Discovery_ finishes the jump protocol and they face the Ship of the Dead, Lorca should leave. He has the information; everything needed to return home.

His crew urges him to it without suspicion. Without blame, if he does.

He can't. Physically, he can't. There's a cord knotted between his heart and Burnham's; he tore it out once and barely recovered from the wound.

He won't again.

Bathed in the holy light of phaser fire, Michael returns to him. As she must. Broken, bleeding, yet whole, for the first time.

She's ready.


	26. Rubicon

**Rubicon**

It happens in an instant. In the space between heartbeats. So fast it's impossible to feel the tidal change sweeping over them. Every molecule in them shifts, slides, and reassembles.

But from the moment his eyes open in the blessed, soft darkness of his universe, he knows they're home.

All Lorca wants, after so long pretending, is to drop his facade and stand proud and unashamed of his own strength, his power. Yet now, more than ever, he must be circumspect.

Now it is vital he hide until the precise moment it will never again be necessary.


	27. Empress

**Empress**

Michael adapts immediately. She is the first to grasp the gravity of their situation, deciding with calm logic how to alleviate their collective ignorance. She's their salvation.

Her steady hand takes half Lorca's burden from his shoulders, and he thinks again how magnificent she will be, ruling by his side.

Or a step behind. Her alter-ego would have overthrown Georgiou, after all. He wants her—so much his hands tremble when she's arrayed in golden armor, regal as a warrior goddess—but he cannot trust her.

She will require the most delicate handling of all.


	28. Destiny

**Destiny**

He's defeated. Bruised and bleeding, kneeling before a lackey of Burnham's ship as she caresses his hair, nails running over his scalp in an idle power-play that makes him shudder.

Her voice...past and present merge and suddenly, Lorca forgets that she's dead, that it isn't Michael-that-was standing above him. But it's  _his_ Michael, the one he was meant to find, the one he was meant to bring where she belongs.

Everything clicks into place, a perfect cosmic puzzle.

No one questions her. How could they?

She's one of them.


	29. Parental

******Parental**

Lorca doesn't often touch Michael. It's too dangerous a game to play. When he does finally put his hands on her, he wants her to realize everything it means. To them.  _For_  them.

But Michael—logical, ruthless, controlled—is tearing at the seams. Her reckoning, almost more than Lorca's, is at hand. She's going to face down a dead woman, a woman  _she killed_ , and not let that rip her apart.

So he touches her. A fatherly touch on the hand, accompanied by advice. Good advice. He means it.

He'll always guide her true.


	30. Ruse

******Ruse**

Georgiou stands before them, proud, arrogant, and magnificent. An Empress who believes she is on the verge of achieving everything she wants, of finally removing a thorn that has troubled her massive, overreaching paw for far too long.

Lorca wants to laugh. She has no idea, she never did, that her triumph was always dependent on  _his_  whim. Her army, her daughter...they were always his. They still are.

"I don't bow," he spits at her, defiant. Her blow he receives as a benediction. One more tally on a list of sins to avenge.

And avenge he will.


	31. Trial

**Trial**

The agonizers. Lorca hadn't forgotten them, not really. He's just grown soft. Pain becomes a distant memory when you no longer hold hands with it every day.

Michael's analgesic barely helps. Screams echo in his ears, screams that tear, grind, and rip. Blood bubbles in his shredded throat. Hard muscles snap in his abdomen, making him double over from an internal pain as severe as the external. His heart is a frantic, wounded thing, battering wild against his chest.

He cannot die. He  _will not_ die.

This is the final test. It will not defeat him.


	32. Revenge

**Revenge**

It's the sweetest death he's ever tasted, that crunching mash of the guard's skull beneath his boot. How dare that cockroach question him, how dare he think his insignificant sister had any part of Lorca's thoughts? He's above them both, beyond them...farther and higher than anyone can imagine.

In one instant, Lorca feels astride the universe. As though he can simply plant his foot where he wants, and it will be his.

Well. No matter how invincible he  _feels_ , he knows better.

With Landry and his soldiers freed, he  _will_  be invulnerable, indeed.


	33. Ascension

**Ascension**

His takeover goes smoothly. With his soldiers at his side, hungry for blood and vengeance, the throne is soon his. There's only one flaw; Michael figures it out, figures  _him_  out, too quickly. Lorca is torn between admiration of her insight and irritation that he won't be able to ease her into the truth before Georgiou does. Michael doesn't need the confusion of two mentors pulling her in opposing directions.

The only voice she needs to hear is his.

He is not afraid. Everything he wants is in his hands, and soon, Michael will be too.


	34. Gambit

**Gambit**

"Michael Burnham is  _not_ to be touched."

He never wanted to do it this way. This public plea, this thinly-concealed confession of aching  _need_. It makes her a target, singling her out. Hell, it makes  _him_  a target, and he's only just finished being one.

But to do nothing and instead allow Michael to come to harm when he could save her doesn't sit well with him. He has to do  _something_.

"She is integral to our future plans."

No one will understand why. He has no intention of telling the truth to anyone but her.


	35. Cracks

**Cracks**

"Because you belong here."

"With  _you_?"

Her eyes calmly assess her surroundings, scanning shadows for threats. To anyone else, she would seem a chilly tactician, sharp and snide as she replies to his assertion. A perfect, self-contained soldier.

But Lorca knows better. Over months he has created, forged, and built her up with challenge after challenge. He sees how his words affect her, how each one lands like a barb, hooking into her skin, connecting them with the piercing force of truth.

He cannot be truthful just now. Later, later, he will whisper his secrets into her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Sorry about the long absence. The beginning of this year has been very up in the air for me, and last week I actually moved to Taiwan after a whirlwind application process. Keeping my spirits even enough to write has been a challenge, so I hope you'll stay with me as I continue this fic and try to update regularly.
> 
> Since my main social is Tumblr and since no one is on Tumblr anymore, if you want to follow me on Instagram (nofearofwaves), Twitter (nofearofwaves) or friend me on Line (grecianviolet), I'm always happy to chat!


	36. Evasion

**Evasion**

Landry returns to the throne room, after having been led astray by Michael's digital shadows. Her frustration is etched deeper into her skin than months of agonizing pain.

"Burnham never played games like this," she gripes, holstering her phaser rifle, "She was a manipulative and scheming bitch, sure, but all that was in service of a straight fight. What's she playing at?"

" _She_ is nothing like the woman you remember," Lorca smiles, pleased by his own satisfaction in Michael, "and if you want to come out successful in any fight against her, I suggest you remember it."


	37. Fruition

**Fruition**

There is no hurry. Everything is falling into place; everything lies neatly in the palm of his hand. If Georgiou is missing, it doesn't matter. She has no power that he needs fear. If Michael still evades him, what of it?

He has the ultimate bargaining chip. She will never abandon  _Discovery_.

And  _Discovery_ is still his.

The culmination of his life's ambitions is to be savored. He can only imagine how helpless his enemies feel, how frustrated and futile their efforts. He only wishes he could drink the feeling like nectar, indescribably sweet on his tongue.


	38. Remorse

**Remorse**

"Sir, an encoded message has just gone out."

It's Michael's first mistake and may well be her last.

If Lorca had not already been planning on using  _Discovery_ against her, Michael would have delivered it to him nonetheless. Her transmission is a beacon, one that leads him to her heart, her inner softness.

How strange. Once, he would have scorned it as her weakness. But that would be hypocrisy, for, though he will never admit it to any but her, Lorca loves them too.

The difference between them is that his love will not stay his hand.


	39. Preordained

**Preordained**

He should have known better. She needs no threats to come to him. Despite her protests, Lorca knows she must feel what he feels. There's a cosmic inevitability between them; he will always find her and she will always be his.

But Michael can still surprise him. When Georgiou precedes her into the throne room, snarling and defeated, a delicious frisson runs through him. It's a beautiful sight: his greatest threat delivered to him by his greatest love.

Once again, Michael Burnham has betrayed her captain—her  _mother—_ for him.

How can she doubt they belong together?


	40. Galatea

**Galatea**

Seeing her before him like this, Lorca is overwhelmed by the genius of his own craftsmanship. True, the universe gifted him Michael's raw potentiality, but he sculpted her into this effigy of graceful, intelligent power.

He can feel her beneath his hands.

Her name is a familiar shape in his mouth. But to hear his in hers, even though she sneers it, is a new experience. It unsettles and thrills him in equal measure.

"I won't let another crew die on my watch,  _Gabriel_. So. A fair trade. The emperor's life—and your legitimacy—for  _Discovery._ "


	41. Sacrificial

**Sacrificial**

He nods, seeming to consider her offer.

"And you're willing to condemn Phillipa to death?"

"She's  _not_ my Phillipa," there's anger there, a festering betrayal. At least Lorca isn't the only one to wound her so deeply.

"Even if that were true, I have her now. What are you really offering?"

She needs to say it.  _He_ needs her to say it. There can be no comfort in evasions, in unspoken truths. No one knows that better than he.

Michael's quiet breath is pained hesitation.

"In exchange for my crew, I offer you me."


	42. Germinate

**Germinate**

"Let them leave safely and I'm yours."

Control. It slips through his fingers like a stream of mycelial spores. He cannot let her know that he is dangerously close to taking whatever sweet bait she dangles even if it means swallowing the hook that holds it.

Now would be a good time for a pithy comment, but his control only extends to expectant silence. So Michael fills it.

"What you said...it was true. My future is here."

She's lying. But what Michael doesn't realize is that her lie is a seed.

And that seeds grow.


	43. Lording

**Lording**

Lorca is many things. Gracious in victory is not one of them. With Michael's fate sealed by her word and safely disarmed—although Michael is never  _safe_ —he indulges in gloating.

Staring at the fallen emperor, he observes, "It seems you're destined to be betrayed by Burnhams in every universe."

Georgiou's brow wrinkles. He considers chasing the jibe with a comment about what he and Burnham are destined for, but Michael's warning of offering him  _only her mind, nothing more_  still rankles.

But Georgiou hears it anyway. The way her lips curl, disgusted, satisfies him.


	44. Broken

**Broken**

As he answers Saru's hail, Lorca finds himself glad to say farewell.  _Discovery_ and her crew have been many things to him, and it surprises him to learn that  _a means to an end_  is the least of these. No. They have been a whetstone for his genius, a canvas for his artistry, a means of expression more pliable and yielding than any he has known before.

He created them, yet here they stand. Implacable enemies.

"I look at you," he murmurs, "and I see—"

"We are not interested in your sentiments," Saru snaps, "Where is Specialist Burnham?"


	45. Farewell

**Farewell**

Who would have thought a Kelpian could grow a spine? Lorca suppresses an indulgent chuckle as he replies:

"She's fine. You don't die today because she chose to stay by my side."  _Where she belongs. Where she has always belonged._

This too, goes unspoken and still is heard. Saru's lips click as he swallows indignity on Burnham's behalf. Does she see it as an indignity? She shouldn't. He'll give her a true field for the exercise of her powers.

"I would like to hear that from  _her_. You are not a reliable source."


	46. Hope

**Hope**

He turns to Michael, nodding. If he stifles her now, Saru is foolish enough to do something gallant, reckless, and unforgivable. Moreover, Michael deserves the chance to say goodbye. She is not overtly sentimental, but her feelings have deep roots. Tearing them out will injure something deep within her, but she can recover.

He'll help. He knows how painful it is to cut your losses.

But what she says next lights a fire within him and it burns, searing and brilliant.

Chin high, eyes bright, Michael says, "I'm where I need to be. This is my place."


	47. Turn

**Turn**

He should have known. He allowed himself to be fooled—allowed her to play him—and he deserves his punishment.

The bridge explodes, a rain of shrapnel hailing down, atmosphere shrieking past his ears until slamming into an emergency force field. Blood fans hot across his face as debris rakes him.

By the time he gains his feet, Georgiou and Michael are tearing through his men. She's beautiful when she fights. Strong, precise, focused. His soldiers are no match for her.

So he faces Georgiou. Once she's gone, he will still have a chance to salvage this.


	48. Exchange

**Exchange**

Vicious and vindictive, Georgiou fights with bared teeth, a tiger desperate to tear his throat out. But Lorca cannot be beaten. He has a destiny.

The fallen emperor does not deserve his attention, not when Michael is trapped, straining to keep Landry's rifle from her throat.

His sword moves faster than his mind. Landry's back is slashed open, bloody, and Michael is safe. He has no time to think whether years of loyalty is worth the idea of a glorious future; such distinctions must wait.

All he knows is he would do it again in a heartbeat.


	49. Betrayal

**Betrayal**

Freed from death, she turns her fight on him. Time telescopes, stretching to unbearable lengths as he parries Michael's blows. He knows her too well to let her catch him. Knows her too well to be hurt.

And yet. And yet.

Her eyes, sighting him down a phaser's length, are pitiful.

"We would have helped you get home. If you had asked," it's a plea for him, to change the past. To unmake this awful present. "That's what Starfleet is. That's who  _I_ am."

He can't reply. His death is in her hands.


	50. Annihilation

**Annihilation**

As his own sword impales him, the pain of his torn heart is all-consuming. His nerve endings shriek so loudly his entire body goes numb. So. This is death. Funny how it narrows one's focus. Lorca's mind, often so busy scrambling for higher ground, is still.

All he sees is Michael. All he thinks of is what they should have been.

If he can just reach her, he'll explain. If she can only  _understand._

"We," he tries, "we could've..."

Too late. He's falling, dissolving into darkness, her eyes the only light he sees.


End file.
